STRAIGHT DRIVES

Because it is straight-forward,straight from my heart & about Cricket,besides topics like portraits, poems, piano notations, Spirituality, my experiences,articles & reviews.
There is something in it for everybody!!!

Monday, September 21, 2015

Many of us face the problem of hiccups from time to time. Sometimes it happens to me if the food is too dry and thus difficult to swallow. One old story about hiccups is that somebody is remembering you and hence the hiccups. Actually they happen when the diaphragm muscle suddenly and involuntarily contracts. But whatever the reason, hiccups could be annoying and even embarrassing if you have an official meeting or presentation. Once it happened to my uncle that he had the hiccups and it didn't stop for one whole day and he had to go to the doctor!

Friday, July 31, 2015

First, I would like to start by saying that this is the 100th post that I am writing!

I have read so much that Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev has said and seen so many of his videos (He along with Osho are the 2 people I have read, or seen their videos the most) so I consider these 2 to be my gurus in a way.
I have actually attended Sadhguru's Inner Engineering program and thus have been initiated by him and hence he really is my guru. I have also attended 2 of his talks.

Recently I thought of summing up what he has said in points. And incidentally today is Guru Purnima so that makes it even better.

So following are some of the things that he has said, many of which I really like and find it relevant. These may not be exact quotes, but it is in my words the summary of what I have heard and read him. I will keep on adding more.

Tuesday, July 14, 2015

In the past, I have spent a lot of time looking for different, interesting websites and softwares which I could use for various purposes. From time to time, I get different ideas in my mind like drawing portraits or making a blueprint of a home etc. So I recently tried to search for all those websites and in the process found a new one- http://www.pimptheface.com.

It is an interesting website where you can easily make different faces. Although I am not too happy with the options available in terms of the nose especially, there are very limited options. Nonetheless, it is very easy to make a portrait here. Here is one I made recently:

Sunday, January 4, 2015

Background-
This was the first time that a World Cup was being held in Cricket for a format
other than ODIs. It was for the latest format- the T20s and it was held in
South Africa. India had just finished an ODI series in England and they did not
even have warm up matches for T20s. India was without the three greats- Sachin,
Sourav and Rahul for the T20s but was led by the young, long-haired man –
Dhoni.

There
was a lot of excitement about the new format which took almost the same time as
a movie. There was also interest about rules like Powerplay and field
restrictions for T20, free-hit and bowl-out. In fact India and Pakistan had met
before the finals in a game which ended with a spectacular bowl-out with India winning
it.

Friday, January 2, 2015

Around 8 months ago I saw a few of my friends playing a game on their mobiles. It looked too simple and unimpressive as I was used to a lot of different kinds of games with amazing visuals etc. I did not even understand the game. Then once I asked my friend about the game, how to play it, what is the objective etc. After that I decided to try it. I downloaded it. It was Candy Crush Saga. After that things were not the same anymore.

Wednesday, September 24, 2014

How would you feel if you found out that you have been here in some previous life? Not once but many, many times; over and over again! Not only that, what would you do if you find out that in your previous life, you were the father of a man who is your father in this life! In other words, you were your own grandfather!

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

Recently I came across a good looking picture and tried my hand at doing portraits once again after so many years. I thought I had lost my touch but the end result came out good enough. In fact I think it is one of the best I have ever done.

Monday, March 11, 2013

To read my popular post on my visit to Dhyanalinga- Isha Yoga Centre, click on THIS LINK

* Pics taken from Isha foundation blog.

It has been almost a month since I finished the 3 day INNER ENGINEERING Program at Hyderabad from 15th to 17th Feb 2013.

15th Feb 2013 was to be my first marriage anniversary and we were thinking about the places we could go to. I had already been to the Isha Yoga Centre in Coimbatore. So, based on that wonderful experience, I wanted to show that place to my wife too and thus we were planning on going there together for our first marriage anniversary.

As luck would have it, just a day after talking about it, I saw an ad on the internet about theInner Engineering Program to be held at Hyderabad (the place we are currently staying) on the same day as our marriage anniversary and the weekend and to add to it, it was close enough to my wife's office too. It certainly was an amazing coincidence if it was one. Nevertheless it was one opportunity I did not want to miss. I called on the numbers given and inquired I found out that Sadhguru himself would be present there all 3 days and there weren't residential facilities, so we would have to go back home and come back in the morning. The seating arrangement is done by groups and we were in the second group i.e. close enough to the stage or dais and so it was one of the more expensive groups. I immediately booked 2 seats.

Sunday, December 23, 2012

The day finally arrives. In recent times people were expecting it, asking for it, yet when it has arrived, it is hard to take in. Yes, Sachin, Tendulkar, Tendlya, Little Master, Master Blaster, God retires from One Day Cricket.

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

The IPL 2012 is finally over with KKR as the deserving winners. CSK were remarkable in coming close to winning the IPL yet again from a not-so-good situation. Teams like RCB and DD relied too much on a few players. MI were a confused lot, especially regarding their opening and won many games in the last over or in fact last ball. RR and PW had almost the same graph but after the initial phase PW just fell away. RR and KXIP did not do much wrong but it was just the competition that was so close and tough. DC were really good with their batting but just could not defend the huge scores that their batsmen set.

Our trip to Kerala started from Ahmedabad on a Monday winter morning. We got up around 5 and got ready, went in the car and finally reached the airport. We had 2 big bags and one small one and a purse. We checked in and went in our first flight together. Unfortunately the seats we got weren't together. There are 3 sets of seats on either side and so we both got the ones away from the window on both sides. Though we were close enough, we weren't together. Not the ideal situation I thought. But there wasn't much option. At least till we reached Mumbai where there was a stop for an hour or so. Unfortunately even from Mumbai, only couples got in so obviously I couldn't ask them to trade places with one of us. One lesson I learnt from this was to ask at the airport counter where they issue the tickets to specially ask for the seats to be together!!!

Saturday, March 31, 2012

Sachin facing: "It is on the pads I can flick it away. Oh, it came of the pad. Good it won't travel too far. Definite two in there" and tells it to Kumble.

Sachin: "Oh no, the fielder came in a bit too quickly to complete 2 runs now. But Kumble is coming back for the second. Oh what the heck. It was my call anyways, I need to honor it now. There is no point but let me go anyway."

Kumble: "Oh Sachin, what are you doing? You are the main batsman. You be safe, let me sacrifice my wicket." (Although there is no way to do that now to give up his wicket instead of Sachin's at the striker's end!!)

Sachin: "Anil what are you doing now?? Even a blind man had a better chance of shooting a target than me making it safe. I did and yet you somehow managed to get in trouble when you were perfectly safe by virtue of me honoring my call."

Thursday, February 2, 2012

Today I just happened to come across a good game of testing reflexes. I enjoyed that and after that visited the main page of the website which was of BBC. They have a lot of interesting things in there. I complete the first one- Stress Test.

Monday, September 12, 2011

There is a feature in Google search where you can search by speaking instead of typing. You just need to click on the microphone symbol and then speak and it shows the search results. I tried. It is funny actually and following are the results I got for the team that played in the 2011 World Cup semifinal- :)

Monday, July 11, 2011

Peaceful warrior is a 2006 movie about a talented but troubled gymnast who meets a spiritual guide. I really enjoyed this movie, well at least those parts of the movie that show the meeting of the gymnast (Dan Millman, played by Scott Mechlowicz) and the spiritual guide ( Socrates, played by Nick Nolte).

Anyone who has been exposed to spirituality, and enjoys reading, listening to it will definitely love it. It is quite close to that. Here I am going to write about the meetings and the dialogues between Dan and Socrates.

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

So the news is out. Osama Bin Laden, the founder of the al-Qaeda organization, responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States and numerous other mass-casualtyattacks against civilian and military targets has been declared dead.....

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Sathya Sai Baba died on 24 April 2011, which was also Easter Sunday. A little more about him:Sathya Sai Baba was born as Sathyanarayana Raju on 23 November 1926, was an Indian guru, spiritual figure and educator. He was described by his devotees as an avatar, godman spiritual teacher and miracle worker.The apparent materialising of vibhuti (holy ash) and other small objects such as rings, necklaces and watches by Baba has been a source of both fame and controversy – skeptics consider these simple conjuring tricks while devotees consider them evidence of divinity. Sathya Sai Baba claimed to be the reincarnation of the spiritual guru, Sai Baba of Shirdi, whose teachings were an eclectic blend of Hindu and Muslim beliefs....

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

I am sure most of you, if not all, would have seen the movie Inception. If not, you really have missed something. In short it is a science fiction film where Leonardo DiCaprio plays Dom Cobb, a specialized spy or corporate espionage thief whose work consists of secretly extracting valuable commercial information from the unconscious mind of his targets while they are asleep and dreaming. Cobb is approached by the wealthy Mr. Saito (Ken Watanabe) asking them to perform the act of "inception", planting an idea within the person's subconscious mind. It involves a whole team with people playing different roles like a Cobb's partner who takes "point" during jobs and is responsible for researching the team's targets, a graduate student who is recruited to construct the various dreamscapes, which are described as mazes, an associate who uses his ability to take the form of others inside the dream world, and a chemist who formulates the drugs needed to sustain the dream states.

Sunday, January 9, 2011

IPL 2011 Auction held on 8 Jan 2011 (the first day) is over and it has given some interesting results. Here is a short summary and analysis.

Presenting the teams in alphabetical order and as per the possible lineup with the players at the end of day one in each squad. The amounts for each player might not be exact, taking the conversion from dollar to rupee and thus is a close approximation.

* Have also added the results of the auction on 9 Jan 2011, the second day. The players bought today 9 Jan are not in bold and those bought yesterday are in bold. Now only the domestic uncapped players remain which will make up the bulk of the teams.

* Updating about the uncapped players as well. They are in italics.

* RETAINED PLAYERS SALARY-

*Also please note that according to IPL rules, for retaining one player, 1.8 million dollars or around 8.4 crores will be deducted from total team money allocated of 9 million $ or 41.4 crores, similarly for 2nd retained player, 1.3 million $ or 6 crore rupees, for 3rd retained player, 0.9 million $ or 4 crore Rs and for fourth retained player, 0.5 million $ or 2.33 crore Rs will be deducted. This however DOES NOT mean that it will be the actual salary of those players. It will be what is agreed upon by the owners and the players and this can be more or less than the deducted amount. Thus the auction might say Gambhir has the highest price but Sachin and Dhoni might still be the highest earning players!

Sunday, October 24, 2010

I have been using Twitter for quite some time and now and have come across some wonderful and funny tweets and thus I decided to compile the best of them. You can also call these funny one liners. I have credited the right people too- those that originally wrote the tweets. This is also only a short list, many more good ones still to come.

Sunday, July 18, 2010

I have come across a lot of blogs which are mainly about Blogging tips. Those, along with the "Make money" blogs are the most common of the lot. Being into blogging for quite some time now, I thought this was an appropriate time for me to give out some blogging tips that would be useful to would-be or beginner & even other bloggers too.
I am not going to simply give the typical blogging tips that you might come across, but I am also going to add from my personal experience and the whole process of it along with aspects related to Marketing your blog.

Friday, June 18, 2010

Here is Chetan Bhagat's article in Maharashtra Times which was in Marathi, translated to English. It was a tough job and I have tried my best. Hope you appreciate it. And excuse me if I have made any mistakes while translating.

Saturday, June 12, 2010

Table Tennis or Ping Pong- This is a game which I now play daily but which for the past 25 years of my life, I never even touched. In this post, I will be writing about the game in general, what I have learnt and observed.

Starting with the game, if you are wondering what the difference is between Table Tennis and Ping pong,

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

* This is the original work of Achyut Telang and you may not reproduce or distribute this information in whole or in part and all photos, images etc on this blog post cannot be copied, edited, reproduced or used without the prior written permission of Achyut Telang.

The only thing is that in that post I had put up a few of my portraits but they were taken by a digital camera and so aren't that clear. Thus, in this post, I have again put up 3 of those 5 portraits this time scanned for better results. Hopefully I will upload that other two portraits after getting them scanned soon enough. Do watch out for them.

Friday, April 23, 2010

I have always loved Discovery Channel and some of the shows there are truly fantastic. Many of them are my favourites. I shouldn't be alive, Man vs wild are just a few of them which can teach you a lot and also inspire you. Thus, with the reference of Discovery channel, here, I am going to tell you a few survival lessons. You never know when you might need them.

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Call it Mumbai, call it Bombay, or Bombaim (for the Portuguese), whatever you call it, the name does not matter.

Mumbai which was basically named after the Hindu goddess ‘Mumba devi’ and ‘Aai’ meaning mother in Marathi was earlier famous as Bombay- meaning ‘good bay’, a name which a lot of people outside India still know it by. A group of seven islands was merged into one to have what today is Mumbai. Appropriated by the Portuguese, ceded to Charles II of England, and in turn leased to the East India Company, Mumbai has imbibed from a lot of influences and as it stands today it’s an amalgamation- a cocktail, a concoction. You can clearly find the mark of the Portuguese and English mainly on some of the monuments and structures still present.

I have been here for 16 months and it has been an enriching experience to say the least. It is the ‘Mumbai’ I had always heard of in television, read in the papers and heard in conversations. Even now, suddenly once in a while I seem to remind myself that I am in THE Mumbai because once you are at any place for a certain amount of time, you do get used to it and start taking it for granted. This is the place where you are very likely to spot a celebrity- an actor or a cricketer; or anybody famous for that matter because they all seem to reside here. This is the place where by the time you realize it’s raining and you take out your brolly (umbrella) or your raincoat, you would have been already drenched by the downpour and by the time you put it on, it would have already stopped raining.

Called as the’ Maximum City’ or ‘The city that never sleeps’, one of the world's top ten centers of commerce, home to important financial institutions as the Reserve Bank of India, the Stock Exchanges and the corporate headquarters of many Indian companies and numerous multinational corporations, the city that houses India's Hindi film and television industry, known as Bollywood, featuring in the Top ten in the world in Financial hubs, expensive streets, office rents, world’s largest billionaire cities and even in filthiest cities. Mumbai is a city of dreams, despair, drama and dazzle; heartbreaking poverty amongst staggering grandness. It is the bubblegum glamour of Bollywood cinema, shopping malls full of designer labels, cricket on the Oval Maidan, promenading families eating bhelpuri on the beach at Chowpatty, red double-decker buses queuing in grinding traffic. This pungent drama is played out against a Victorian townscape more reminiscent of a prosperous 19th-century English industrial city than anything you'd expect to find on the edge of the Arabian Sea. It's a city with vibrant street life, India's best nightlife, and a wealth of bazaars. Millions travel everyday by trains and buses. Nearly eighteen million people live here - wealthy industrialists, flashy film stars, internationally acclaimed artists, workers, teachers and clerks - all existing cheek by jowl in soaring skyscrapers and sprawling slums. They come from diverse ethnic backgrounds and speak over a dozen tongues adding colour, flavour and texture to the Great Mumbai Melting Pot...........

Monday, April 12, 2010

* Even if you don't have a Rubik's cube, you can use a Java virtual Rubik's cube HERE

What I am giving here won't be the fastest way to solve a Rubik's cube, you won't need to understand the whole mechanics but neither will you have to refer to anything or need external help after this help of mine of course! This is for those who can solve a bit of the cube, not whole or those who can do it by following a lot of algorithms from somewhere. With this, you will be able to solve the whole cube and only remembering a few easy algorithms.

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

* This is the original work of Achyut Telang and you may not reproduce or distribute this information in whole or in part and the content on this blog post cannot be copied, edited, reproduced or used without the prior written permission of Achyut Telang.

BLISSFUL EXISTENCE :

What a wonderful world
This Existence has provided us with
But even to know it that way,
You will need the eyes and ears for it.

Where every day as the night ends,
The whole world comes to life
From the birds to all creatures,
All become active and throbbing with life.

Where the sun everyday rises punctually,
Without even a single holiday
Light and warmth that it provides with,
Gives comfort to everyone day after day.

Where a lot of different climates
Are there for us to experience,
And for such variety of seasons,
Nature takes nothing, not even once.

Where there is beautiful greenery
And flowers of all colour and shade
From the lotus to rose are different smells
And even colours like yellow and red.

Where every day the sunset creates
The most largest and natural canvas
Whose painter is really unknown but
Every other painter, he definitely does surpass.

Where an unknown musician creates music
Through the orchestra of a river or a bird
which is of divine quality and the best
But to know this, it has to be heard.

Where every day the night falls,
And everything goes into a deep sleep,
It is a moment of complete rest
And eternal peace so profound and deep.

Achyut Telang.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Fact: Every day 50 to 100 species of plants and animals become extinct as their habitat and human influences destroy them.

Thursday, April 1, 2010

There does seem to be some French connection with me because after dabbling a bit with the French language, today I made The madeleine or petite madeleine, which is a traditional small cake from northeastern France.

Monday, March 29, 2010

Since the time a man called Sachin Tendulkar picked up a bat and started playing as a child, such has been the mesmerising sight that people have not been able to refrain themselves from describing it.

Starting with 'a child prodigy' then came the all the common adjectives- great, super, majestic, amazing which all seem so petty now, then came genius, master, little master and master blaster, even higher - legend of the game and he was only 25 then. At that moment itself, it should have become apparent to all, that soon the English language and its vocabulary would be found inadequate and that people are going to run out of words to describe this man.

People realized this soon and so started to use their creativity and thus came descriptions like..

Sunday, March 28, 2010

I wonder if you have noticed this before in Google, since we all use it so frequently, while entering something in Google for search, it gives some suggestions and that is what I am going to put here. It is funny to see what kind of things people are generally looking for!

Saturday, March 27, 2010

Set amidst the dense forests at the foothills of the Velliangiri Mountains, is the Dhyanalinga Yogic Temple, the first of its kind to be completed in over 2000 years. Created by a profound mystic and yogi, it embodies the distilled essence of yogic science.This powerful meditative space does not ascribe to any particular faith or belief system nor does it require any ritual, prayer, or worship."Just sitting silently for a few minutes within the sphere of Dhyanalinga is enough to make even those unaware of meditation experience a state of deep meditativeness" - Sadhguru

Loaded with knowledge like this and lots more in great detail about Sadhguru, Dhyanalinga and Isha Yoga Centre, I just had to visit it and have an experience of it all.............

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Having thought many times of having a best blog post contest, finally now it is here.

You can submit any one of your blog posts which you think is the best. Just leave the link of that blog post in the comments section. This is open till 14th April. I will announce the results on 20th April here itself.

Criteria- It would be preferable if the blogs aren't too technical or region/culture specific which other people can't easily relate to. It could be funny, a true story, part of your personal diary, something creative or anything else.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

If the most deadliest creatures on the planet were ever to confront each other in the wild, which predator would win the ultimate battle? Many of nature’s deadliest confrontations are never seen and some of the mightiest beasts are destined never to meet - until now!

Monday, March 15, 2010

I am sure most of you, like me, spend quite a lot of your time online browsing through various websites. And there are times when you really have nothing to do and having gone through all your pet websites are bored and aimlessly browsing, just looking for something good to spend your time.

This is one website which can become quite addicting and the beauty if it is that here time flies away quickly, you get in action mode, get involved, it also has virtual social interactions..in short everything one might want to spend some time enjoying.

Isketch is a kind of a game similar to Pictionary where one after the other, an artist is selected, given a word which others can't see and that artist has to draw and others have to guess that word. Simple? Only the concept is.......

Sunday, February 28, 2010

When a movie of this sort is about to be released, which has the most awesome line up of action stars ever assembled together, there is going to be a lot of hype and expectations naturally. When I came to know about it, I thought it might not really live up to the high expectations and might not be able to do justice to the star studded cast. But after watching the movie, I must say I quite liked it. Definitely a must watch for action movie fans. It is the dream come true for almost everybody who would have often thought- How awesome it would be to see all our favorite action stars together!

Monday, February 15, 2010

Calvin and Hobbes has always been one of my all time favourites. I feel if you are looking for wisdom, you need not look any further and here you get it in a fun way too. Through this comic strip, a lot is said that is quite deep and meaningful through the eyes of a six year old.
Here I am going to put up some of the best Calvin and Hobbes comic strips of all time.

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With over 300 comments and thousands of visitors, Piano Notations I & II has been a huge success. I put up song notations (both western notes & Indian Sargam) which people request for and also tell you how you can play it even if you don't have a musical instrument. Don't leave without visiting it!